What Do You With 3,000 Bottle Caps? Make a Giant Wisconsin Sports Mosaic!
Paul Jerrett with his bottle cap mosaic, perhaps the most Wisconsin thing imaginable.
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life gives you free time to drink beer, you make an enormous, detailed mosaic from beer bottle caps. That’s the inspiration we can draw from Chippewa Falls resident Paul Jerrett, who created a 7½-foot-tall, 6½-foot-wide Wisconsin sports-themed mosaic using an estimated 3,131 bottle caps.
Jerrett’s Wisconsin-shaped masterpiece – which combines the logos of the Brewers, Packers, Bucks, and Wisconsin Badgers – took nearly three years to create. And that’s on top of 14 years of saving bottle caps (and asking for help from friends and family who worked in taverns).
“When the kids where in bed at night, it gave me something to do,” Jerrett said of the project, which he worked on in his basement.
Jarrett used a transparency and a flashlight to project his chosen design onto plywood. Then, employing tin snips, pliers, and a hammer, he cut and shaped the bottle caps, then glued them onto plywood. Bottle caps from more than 100 brands of beer, hard cider, and other beverages were used, from Budweiser reds to Rolling Rock Blues to Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss yellows.
Jerrett first shared his completed project online in early March, just before the pandemic lockdown reached Wisconsin. A few weeks later, he posted some photos on the Jump Around Wisconsin Facebook page, and was pleased by all the positive feedback from fellow Sconnie folk. “A lot of people said that’s the most Wisconsin thing they’ve ever seen,” Jerrett said. A few people even inquired about what he was asking for the massive mosaic, but he replied that it isn’t for sale: It will soon find a place of honor in his own home.
Here’s hoping a summer of coronavirus-created downtime – and perhaps a few adult beverages – inspire your own imaginative project, whether it’s made from bottle caps or more traditional materials. Cheers!
